


the price you pay (the soul thief)

by madgetval



Category: Original Work
Genre: Adoption, Afterlife, Alternate Universe - Western, Arson, Character Death, Crack Treated Seriously, Dysfunctional Family, Execution, Gen, Guns, Real People Characters, Soul Stealing, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-13 05:01:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29895990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madgetval/pseuds/madgetval
Summary: Ten years ago, Star left the town of Bedlam Shire, in search of opportunity in the big cities.Ten years after she left, she comes back to see that the place she once called home was no more than a shadow.The woman who she had called her closest friend was gone, and in her place was a monster. A monster who dared to look like her best friend, who dared to hurt the people who she loved.Based on the events that took place on Aria_Cinabun's discord server on December 14th, 2020.Beta read by FuckingSadBoi, BeaniesBooks and some IRL friends.
Comments: 9
Kudos: 11





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Aria_Cinabun](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aria_Cinabun/gifts), [Star606](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Star606/gifts), [Katterwaul](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katterwaul/gifts), [ClockWise127](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClockWise127/gifts), [FuckingSadBoi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FuckingSadBoi/gifts), [BeaniesBooks](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeaniesBooks/gifts).



Kat tapped the heel of her boot against the wooden floor and leaned back in her chair, scowling. On the other side of the table, Star, a cousin from one of the rival branches of her family adjusted her bag awkwardly on her shoulder.

“I gave you my trust,” Kat said slowly, her eyes narrowing. “I told you that I’d fund your project in return for the tiniest bit of recognition.”

Star couldn’t remember that, but she realized how bad it would be if Kat really had asked for her payment back. She hadn’t brought much money with her, for fear of robbers.

Kat stood up and slammed her hands against the tabletop. Star flinched and took a cautious step back. Kat walked around the table and came to stand directly in front of Star. Although Star was taller, she was still wary of what her old friend could do.

In the time that she’d been gone, things had changed. Kat was paler and the colour looked like it had been drained from her orange hair and skin. Her eyes were teal and lifeless, framed by a pair of spectacles.

Kat leaned down. “I gave you _fifty_ dollars to support your book. Not a single _ounce_ of recognition. None of it. I asked you to repay me.”

 _No, you didn’t_ , sang Star’s mind as Kat shoved her backwards.

“It’s been ten years, Star. Ten. Years,” Kat seethed. “I asked you for those fifty dollars back. Exactly how much I gave you, not including everything else I paid for. Reasonable, right?”

She continued. “You have none of it. And you still dare to show your face in this town?”

“I- I, uh, didn’t, uh, bring it,” Star stuttered, deciding it best not to challenge Kat’s words directly, for the time being, her eyes flicking from Kat’s face to the open window behind the desk. “I was worried about robbers.”

Kat scoffed. “What’s more likely is that you didn’t want to pay back what you owe me.”

She turned away. Star was debating in her head whether to draw the dagger at her belt and stab Kat, and make a run for it, but decided otherwise. Too messy. Too many loose ends.

“Then what do you suggest, your _honor_?” she shot back, shifting her weight onto her right leg. Her left leg had been injured during a scuffle with a few members of a gang that she had encountered a few years ago, in the city.

Kat turned around after a minute of silence, and Star’s heart plummeted as she saw the malicious grin that had spread across her face. “There’s an old ritual that can be performed, and I’m sure you're aware of it. An old family tradition that allows us to exact revenge upon those who have wronged us.”

“Soul-stealing,” Star breathed.

Kat smiled, but it wasn’t a happy one, and it made Star’s blood go cold. “That’s right. In return for your lack of respect, I’m going to steal your soul.”


	2. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When a friend of yours tells you that she's going to steal your soul, what would you do? Watch an orphanage burn down, of course.

The town of Bedlam Shire was run almost entirely by a large family that controlled almost all of the businesses that ran in it. They were the Terwauls, but there were many nowadays and they went by many names - most notably, Baker, Fisher and Karneval.

Bedlam had a mayor, sure - her name was Aria Cinabun, and she was a woman who was way in over her head. She wasn’t cut out to be the mayor of a town so dependent on a family that she wasn’t a part of.

It was situated in the west, an old town that had been founded by Sunny Terwaul, over a century ago. It was cut off from the rest of society and was relatively self-sufficient. Occasionally they would have to send for provisions from their neighbouring town, Madgeton.

But for the most part, they stayed inside the boundaries.

It was quite a big town, actually, compared to the number of residents. It was sprawled across the desert plains, which rolled out in all directions. In the east, there were some hills. There were almost three hundred people in it, mostly descended from the two families that had settled there so long ago - the original Terwauls and the Cinabuns. Now those two families had spread, and there were at least twenty groups of people that could almost count as families by themselves.

Aria had appointed four people to take care of Bedlam Shire - four women, who were named Kash, Kat, Guppy and Kitsune. They each represented one powerful branch of the Terwauls, with Aria representing the Cinabuns. Bedlam would have been a perfect town there, had there been a balance of power between each member, with Aria being the most powerful.

But the thing was, there _wasn’t_. Aria was a Cinabun. The most powerful Cinabun, sure, but still, her influence paled next to people like Kat and Kash. She was just the face of the town while the Terwauls ran it from behind. She preferred not to think about that, though. It made her nervous after a while.

Aria loved her town. It was beautiful, or she thought so. It was old but charming, its summers bitterly hot and its winters bitterly cold, but still bearable. But what was most important was that it was _her_ town.

She was sitting in the Groundhog Saloon, peering down a tankard that had once held her water. She opened her mouth to ask for a refill when the doors were kicked open, revealing Kat Terwaul, dragging along a loudly protesting girl.

Aria blinked as the girl was deposited in front of her. “Kat, what is the meaning of this?”

“This girl,” Kat spat. “This girl -”

“I can speak for myself, thank you very much,” the girl said haughtily, picking herself up from the floor. She had elegantly-styled brown hair and angry blue eyes. She brushed the dust off her coat and trousers and Aria saw that this girl was not a simple country girl. She was a city girl. A rich one, in fact, judging by the bright, crisp colors of her clothing.

Actually, upon further inspection, Aria realized that this girl was older than she had initially thought. She couldn’t tell exactly how old, but she was definitely an adult. Did that make her a city woman or something?

Aria decided not to follow that train of thought.

The woman cleared her throat. “I am Star Baker. I left this town ten years ago in search of a career in the cities, as an author. I’ve returned.”

Aria raised an eyebrow, then realizing that she was holding her tankard awkwardly, put it down. “So did you fail out there? Why are you back here? Surely you knew we wouldn’t accept you back.”

Star’s eyes narrowed, and her head assumed a haughty tilt. “Believe what you want, it doesn’t matter to me. I’ve come back to visit my family, and was promptly kidnapped by my aunt when I went to visit her.”

Kat stamped her foot. She looked a lot like an angry child, Aria observed. “She owes me fifty dollars.”

“Fifty dollars?” Aria said. “That’s quite a large sum. Not the largest ever, but a lot. I take it that you lent her fifty dollars to fund whatever she was doing in the cities, and she hasn’t paid you back after ten years.”

“Well, you see, the road to Bedlam from -”

Star was cut off by the sheriff, Julia, throwing open the doors. “Ms. Mayor!”

Aria slid down from her bar stool. “What’s the matter?”

Julia leaned against the wall, trying to catch her breath. “It’s the orphanage. It’s burning down.”

~~~

They arrived at the orphanage after running non-stop down the road. Aria had been worried about the sheriff abandoning her duties, but Julia had already assigned someone as temporary sheriff, looking over the site.

The owners of the orphanage, Wise Terwaul and Kash Baker (who was one of the four representatives that Aria had appointed) were busy making sure all of their wards were fine. Behind them, the roof of the dormitory building had already collapsed as the support pillars disintegrated into ashes.

The Bedlam Shire Orphanage was famous, in that it was the only orphanage for fifty miles in any direction. Many children whose parents had abandoned them or had died in neighboring towns and villages were deposited in Bedlam’s orphanage, and Wise and Kash were more than happy to take care of them. The orphanage took up almost an entire block in the town, with separate buildings for a manner of functions, separated by a yard and surrounded by a stone wall.

The front building was the dormitories, and it had indeed collapsed. It seemed that every building on the premise was on fire, but this one had taken it very badly. However, it looked like the children had all gotten out safely.

Kash turned around, and her eyes snapped onto Aria. “Mayor Cinabun! You’re here!”

“What’s the matter?” Aria asked urgently. Kash gestured violently at the burning orphanage. “Well, yes, but is everyone safe?”

“We’ve lost one of the workers,” Kash replied distractedly, pulling a child away from the fire without looking at Aria. She was short, and was eternally angry. “And the culprit isn’t going to be safe once we find out who did it.”

“Are you sure it wasn’t just a normal fire? Or an accident?” Aria pressed. “It’s summer, it’s very dry. A simple spark could have lit a fire.”

Kash shook her head violently. “We’ve made sure that the orphanage is completely devoid of fire starters. So to light a fire, someone must have deliberately gone out to seek the things they needed to start it, like matches.”

A scream rose as one of the impromptu firefighters, a man who Julia recognized as Nath, a tailor who was fond of socks, dragged out what looked like a body behind him. He laid the body outside and one of his teammates threw a cloth over it. From a distance, Julia could see blackened skin. She rushed up to see who it was. But did she want to?

The people in charge of transporting the water for the firefighters were making another trip to the water tanks when Julia intercepted one of them. It was a boy who she knew as Nikko. “Nikko, how much water have we used?”

The boy’s eyes focused back on Julia’s face, and she was stunned by how distant his expression was. Nikko had already gone through the grief of losing his home, and was in a state of shock. “I think we’ve used about… two hundred gallons?”

Julia inhaled sharply. That was a lot of water. If they weren’t careful, they’d run out of water. Spring had just rolled into summer, so they had experienced a bit of rain, but not enough if they were going to stop the fire. Still, they couldn’t exactly let the orphanage burn.

She let Nikko go, and the boy set off on the battered bike that he had no doubt gotten from Wise. She turned back to see the children being led away by a few of the workers in the orphanage, while Wise and Kash remained to survey the fire.

As she walked back to the wreckage, she saw Aria pass the hose, attached to a pipe attached to the metal tank beside the orphanage, to one of the other firefighters, this one who she called Jello. Jello wrapped their mostly fireproof coat tighter around themselves, and went back into the building, dodging the flames that licked and snarled at them.

At least this disaster would make Aria appear a little kinder in the eyes of the residents of Bedlam Shire. Julia knew that in the eyes of many of the people she was meant to be taking care of, she was no more than a vessel that the Terwauls used to control the town. If she helped them put out the fire, surely that meant that she would get a boost in popularity, right?

There was a loud shriek and Julia turned to see one of her best friends, a girl named Treas who everyone called Cheeze, scramble away from the body covered by the cloth. The corner had been lifted away to reveal the charred face of the person who had once inhabited the body.

Julia knew this face, and it was so wrong to see that face so still. She felt the bile rise in her throat as she recognized the dead body of Val. Her “friend”, her _sister_ , her once-coworker.

Dead.

She took a step back as the body was put onto a stretcher. There would be a funeral, after this mess was sorted out.

Val had been one of the first kids to be adopted by Wise and Kash. After she had grown too old to be a ward in the orphanage, she had worked there. She and Julia had never gotten on very well, but Val had been too young to die.

The stretcher was dragged away by some people as Nikko and his fellow water-fetchers returned, with barrels attached to their bicycles. Two of the older children in the orphanage immediately took the barrels and poured it into the tank.

There was another scream as the roof of one of the buildings inside the walls of the orphanage collapsed. Julia had sworn that that particular building hadn’t been on fire earlier. Another firefighter attached a hose to the tank and ran into that burning building.

The scream had come from a boy called Dragon, who had no doubt been trapped in the blaze and hadn’t been able to get free. But it seemed awfully odd that he had emerged from the same building that had just collapsed, and hadn’t been on fire earlier.

_Oh well, I guess I’m just overthinking things._

Julia helped Dragon up as the boy stumbled over one of the hoses. Dragon glared at her and ran to Wise, wrapping his arms around her caretaker.

Julia rolled her eyes at the boy’s unexpected animosity and decided that it wasn’t worth her interest. She was the sheriff, and her job was to find the criminals in the town. Like the one who had lit the fire, according to Kash.

Nikko’s group had gone off again, to fill their barrels up from the reservoir. Julia surveyed the surroundings. Most people seemed to be panicked over the fire, and nobody seemed to be gloating over their successful arson.

But acting was easy, as Julia had learned over eight years of being Bedlam Shire’s sheriff.

There was a hand on her shoulder and she turned around to see Aria behind her. Aria was just an inch shorter than her most of the time, but right now, as she glowered, she appeared much taller. Her dark brown hair, usually held in an updo, was loose from helping with the fire. “What is it, Ms. Mayor?”

“We’ve found the culprit,” Aria said. “Or at least, a suspect.”

“Who is it?”

Aria led the way back towards the main group of people. There, Julia saw Dragon, the boy who had escaped the fire, kneeling on the ground with his hands tied behind his back.

“This boy lit the fire,” one of the other people said - a man named Porter. “This is the culprit you’re looking for.”

~~~

Dragon hated this. He hated it a lot.

He was in one of the cells in the prison. Although he could move freely, the door was securely locked. He glared at the wall, where a lamp hung, the only source of light in his dim cell.

He had been so _stupid._ He hadn’t counted on anyone searching his pockets and finding the matches he had bought from a shady group of people he had found strolling around the town. He should have disposed of them when he had gotten the chance, but he had thought he might need to use them again.

Starting the fire had been easy. In the dry desert, there was little moisture, and the orphanage buildings were quite old, so the wood was extremely flammable. He had lit only one floorboard alight in each building, using his matches and a bit of kindling, and the buildings had gone up in flames.

It would have been the most glorious moment of his life, had he gotten away with it.

But alas, he had been caught, and he had no doubt he would be punished severely for it. Bedlam had a guilty-before-proven-innocent policy for crimes, and there was no way he could prove his innocence. He had no alibi, and nobody believed that he had been framed, no matter how much he pleaded.

He scowled, staring at the wall. His trial was in a few hours, but he already knew what the verdict would be. He would be proven guilty and punished, and his life would be a living hell after. That is, if he wasn’t executed.

He had seen two dead bodies. Val, and Eclipse. Val had been discovered quickly, but Eclipse had been trapped inside a locked room, so Dragon hadn’t seen her body be discovered.

A fifteen-year-old boy had taken two lives. Dragon didn’t care about the blood on his hands, but the other residents of Bedlam Shire surely did.

Dragon had been raised in a big city, in the alleyways. Fighting had been the only way to survive, and he had been good at it. All of his opponents, who would later become his victims, suffered intense pain and heavy injuries after facing him, and it wasn’t that different from killing someone.

Of course, he had never committed arson, but the idea was still the same.

One could be scared of the fifteen-year-old boy, who showed no remorse for murdering two people who he had known personally. One could argue that there was something terribly wrong with the boy’s mind.

There probably was, but Dragon didn’t care. He had been tired of the peaceful life in Bedlam Shire, and Wise and Kash’s orphanage. The two women were always there, always watching, and too trusting of people.

Well, it had been a mistake, because now their orphanage was burned down and two people were dead.

 _Why did you do it?_ a voice in his head asked.

He didn’t know. He wanted to say he didn’t regret it, but he did. He had known these two people, and Eclipse had been one of his closest friends. Now, she was dead. And Dragon would be dead too, soon.

~~~

Star was jostled around in the crowd as she tried to get closer to the stage in the middle of the courtyard. Everyone was confused as to why there was a temporary stage set up with a gallows atop it and a noose already hanging from it. Star had a feeling she knew why, and a feeling that it had something to do with the boy who had lit the fire in the orphanage.

It was a cloudy day, the sky bleak and grey. Today, no birds sang from the trees and no urchins snuck around in the alleys. Everyone, young and old, rich and poor, were gathered in the town square. The townspeople knew that someone would die, executed in front of hundreds of people, but they didn’t know who.

 _Right_ , Star remembered. Dragon’ actions had been hushed up by the people in power. They didn’t want any panic or any protests.

She was standing near the stage, right next to a few of the kids from the orphanage. Star didn’t know why attendance was compulsory for these children, and she imagined herself at their age, watching an execution. One of the boys, Bean, was barely ten years old.

Crown was there as well, and Star had seen them ten years ago. They had been about seven when Star had left for the city, and now Star supposed they were seventeen.

Looking around the courtyard, Star realized how extravagantly she was dressed. Most everyone in Bedlam was dressed in browns, whites and occasionally some blues, while Star was wearing a red coat. A very vibrant red coat, in fact.

And it apparently didn’t slip past the townspeople’s notice. She was getting a lot of stares from them - of contempt from the children, and envy from the adults. She awkwardly took off her coat and put it around Crown’s shoulders. The child looked up at her, confused, but Star said nothing.

After what seemed like hours, something finally happened. The crowd fell silent as Dragon was dragged onto the stage, his hands tied behind his back like the last two times Star had seen him. Behind Dragon and the two guards that were dragging him along, came the mayor and the sheriff, and then Kat Terwaul.

Kat and Star’s gazes met briefly, and Star intensely glared at the other woman, who looked away. She cleared her throat and read from the papers in her hands.

“Five days ago, fire caught onto the orphanage in Bedlam Shire, destroying much of the property and killing two people. The culprit, Dragon whose surname is unknown, has been caught. Yesterday, he was put on trial and found guilty, and sentenced to hang until death.”

Star could now see Dragon climbing onto the stool in the middle of the stage. The boy’s legs were trembling, and Star felt sick to her stomach. She didn’t know if Dragon had done it on purpose or intentionally killed Eclipse and Val, but his trial had been brief and the outcome had already been decided before the trial.

Where was the justice in the town she had once called home?

Dragon was standing on the stool. One of the guards, who would be the boy’s executioner, was pointing her bayonet at Dragon’s torso, putting the noose around his neck. Dragon was thankfully quite tall for his age, so there was still quite a bit of extra rope and hope that his neck would snap instead of him just dangling there until he suffocated.

In a few minutes, after all the legal processes had been finished, the guard would pull the stool from underneath Dragon’s feet and his body would drop. Dragon was doomed to die, and there was nothing Star could do.

Kat’s voice had been speaking in the background but now it fell silent as she looked at Dragon. Although Kat didn’t like Star, hated her, in fact, Star knew - she hoped - that even Kat didn’t want to condemn this boy to death. But it was the law, and Dragon had killed two people.

“Is there anything the criminal would like to say before he dies?” Mayor Cinabun asked.

Dragon shook his head.

The executioner reached for the stool and Star squeezed her eyes shut as Dragon, a boy she had known ten years ago, died.

The crowd was dead silent, horror and fear tense in the atmosphere. Star cracked one eye open to see Dragon’s body hanging. She couldn’t tell if he was dead or alive. She closed her eyes again.

The townsfolk gradually dispersed. Star could hear the whispers. Nobody liked how Dragon was executed - in a spectacle, being made an example of.

She finally opened her eyes and tried to ignore the body clad in white hanging from the noose. She caught Kat’s eyes again and the woman standing on the stage gave a small smile. Small, but full of malice.

Star knew what that smile meant.

 _I can and I_ will _punish those who anger me._

Maybe she had been wrong about Kat. Maybe Kat wasn’t the woman who had looked at her with pity ten years ago and brought her into the orphanage and befriended her.

Star ripped her eyes from Kat’s teal ones and turned away.


	3. Chapter 2

“Star?” a voice asked.

She knew that voice. She had seen that woman a few times since returning, and even if she didn’t, she had listened to that voice for many years. Wise.

Star looked up from the desk in her hotel room to see Wise standing outside the door. “Mom? Come in.”

Wise wasn’t her mother, technically speaking, but Wise had raised her like her own child since Star’s parents had died and none of her Baker relatives had wanted or been able to take care of her. She was one of the few people Star could call a friend in Bedlam Shire.

A friend that happened to be Kat’s younger sister, as a matter of fact. 

She’d noticed that the two sisters had grown noticeably further apart, but they were blood relatives and Star was not.

Kat was older than Wise by two years and thus was the oldest living direct descendant of Sunny Terwaul, the man who had represented the Terwauls in the founding of Bedlam Shire. Star didn’t remember exactly how old the two of them were, but she remembered that ten years ago, Wise had been in her early thirties.

Wise was tall. Like, really tall. About six feet tall, in fact. She had long, dirty blonde hair pulled back in a bun, and warm green eyes that reminded Star of green apples.

But that wasn’t important.

“Could I come in?” Wise asked tentatively, and Star remembered that she was there.

“Oh, of course!”

Wise stepped into the room and looked around. “Wow, I’ve never actually - I’ve never actually been inside one of the rooms in Owl’s hotel before.”

Star put down the pen she was writing with and stood up, tucking her chair behind her. “So, what are you here for?”

Wise shifted from one foot to another uncomfortably. “I just wanted to talk.”

“Well, then talk!” Star snapped. She hesitated as she saw the surprise flash in Wise’s expression. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be mean, it’s just that I’m under a lot of pressure at the moment, and-”

“Why?” Wise asked. Star narrowed her eyes and studied Wise’s face and realized that Wise genuinely didn’t know what was going on.

 _Better not to tell her that her sister is going a little cuckoo and that in a few days, I will have no soul, stolen from me by Kat_ , Star decided. To Wise, she said, “Oh, I’m just working on something right now, and it’s taking a lot of time.

That part was true - she was writing her will because she hadn’t done so earlier. She hadn’t thought that she would die so early in life.

From what she could recall about the Terwaul family rituals, soul-stealing involved seven steps. The last step was to “obtain their soul”. Someone without a soul had a fifty percent chance of dying, and a fifty percent chance of living without a soul.

Without a soul, people had noticeably become colder and they didn’t feel positive emotions. Star decided that dying was a better option, to prevent her soulless self from living without happiness and hurting those she loved.

“Oh,” said Wise. “I guess I’ll leave you to it.”

Star smiled, and Wise reached out for a hug. The two embraced, and Star almost felt as if she was a young girl all over again, being adopted into the family that Wise ran at the orphanage.

“Also, how is Kash doing?” Star asked as she was released.

Wise laughed. “She’s doing how Kash does. Her obsessive love for bread still hasn’t disappeared and some of the kids are following in her example. But she’s doing well, I guess.”

“That’s good to hear.” Star sat back down in her chair.

“Star?” Wise said.

“Yeah?” Star replied, turning to look at the other woman.

“I’m glad you’re back,” Wise said. Star forced a smile.

“So am I,” she lied.

~~~

That evening, Star visited the saloon.

Business was booming. Everybody had been going to the saloon in the past few days, talking about the execution. Aria’s popularity had dropped drastically. Many people agreed that the boy should have died, but they also thought that a public execution was almost barbaric.

Especially since guns existed, and it was a much more humane way to perform an execution.

She was sitting at the bar, drinking water because she wasn’t alcoholic. She was with Cheeze and Taye, two of her long time friends she had met ten years ago.

“Have you heard of the rival orphanage that’s opening on the other side of town?” Taye asked in a furious whisper. Cheeze nodded frantically.

“I can’t believe that Fundip would betray us like that!” Cheeze added. She glared at her orange juice. “He was always the mayor’s favourite, I suppose. So he won’t see any oppression from that b-”

“Okay, okay!” Taye interrupted before Cheeze could say anything else against the mayor.

“Why are there rival orphanages?” Star asked. “Isn’t the orphanage there just so the orphans have somewhere to live? Why is there another, now?”

Cheeze shrugged. “I guess some people just want profits.”

Taye raised an eyebrow. “And I suppose the coat that’s hanging from the back of your chair wasn’t bought using money that you earned from the orphanage?”

Cheeze drew herself up to as tall as she could, grabbing onto the green coat that reminded Star of the coloring of a frog. “As a matter of fact, it wasn’t. Val gave the money to me in her … you know … will.”

Star cringed internally as she remembered that Val and Cheeze had been best friends. Now, with Val dead, Cheeze would feel very lost. Star knew. She had been through that as well.

Taye evidently decided to drop this sensitive subject. “Anyway, Star, it’s good to see you back home.”

 _Home_. As if this place, full of death and anger, could seem like home to her. Maybe ten years ago, but definitely not today.

She didn’t know what to say. “Yeah, I guess. It’s a lot more … sinister … than last time I was here.”

“Oh, that’s not all the time,” Taye said. “I swear, this has never happened before in the time you were gone. Trust me, this’ll all die down. Usually, there aren’t children burning buildings and executions.”

 _That wasn’t what I was talking about, but okay_ , Star thought. Evidently, the news of Kat’s threat of soul theft hadn’t gotten out yet.

She pretended to brighten up. “How’re the children going these days?”

“Well, apart from the orphanage burning down, it’s okay,” Cheeze said thoughtfully, which was unlike Cheeze. “The kids have been moved to various houses around town that can look after them while the buildings get repaired.”

“Have you spoken to Marina or Pichu, by any chance?” Taye asked seriously.

Star had seen her two best friends around, but she hadn’t mustered up the courage to speak to them. If Kat, who had been one of her closest friends, had now turned into whatever she was now because Star had left and betrayed her, she couldn’t imagine what her _best_ friends were like.

“No, I haven’t,” she confessed, taking another sip of her water. “I haven’t gotten the courage to, yet.”

“Well, you should,” Cheeze added. “They’ll be very happy to see you.”

Star smiled. “I guess I’ll pay them a visit.”

“You don’t have to,” Taye said, also smiling. She nodded at the door behind Star and she turned around to see Pichu and Marina step in.

Star let out a choked gasp as she saw her two best friends. She slid off her stool to greet them.

Pichu, the shorter of the pair, almost fell over when Star reached her, but Marina managed to stay upright. The three of them stood in a huddle, with Star trapping them with her hug.

She finally let go. She had only seen them from a distance after arriving back at Bedlam, but now, up close, they still didn’t look any different from ten years ago.

“Star!” Pichu said in a tiny shriek as she was let go. “You’re home!”

Star grinned. “Course I am. And it’s so good to see you two.”

Marina didn’t say anything, just simply smiled.

She led them to the bar, where Cheeze and Taye were still sitting. The two other people nodded as Pichu and Marina sat down on Star’s other side, creating somewhat of a Star sandwich.

The trio was reunited, and it seemed that nothing had changed. The two other girls - well, they weren’t exactly girls anymore, were they? - were still the Marina and Pichu from ten years ago.

Star didn’t want to admit it, but she almost cried.

They were back together. Star, Marina and Pichu, just like the old times. They bought drinks and Star continued drinking her water.

“So, you two don’t look like you hate me,” Star said, once they had said their greetings and their goodbyes to Cheeze and Taye.

Marina raised an eyebrow, taking a sip from her glass of apple juice. “What does that even mean?”

“Well, I met up with Kat, and I think she hates me. It’s got something to do with the debt I owe her, and she also wants to steal my soul. Also -”

“Are you quite sure you’re alright?” Pichu asked, putting a hand on Star’s arm.

“Not at all,” Star answered, smiling. “I know that I’m going to die or live without emotions, but at least you two don’t hate me, unlike Kat.”

Pichu and Marina exchanged a very serious look.

“What?”

Marina sighed, putting down her glass and leaning backwards, balancing her chair on its back legs. “I don’t know how to put this, but Kat doesn’t have a soul, currently. She lent it to save her best friend’s life and now she’s soulless.”

Star blinked, her glass of water halfway to her mouth.

 _Well, that explains a lot_ , she admitted. _Without a soul, she can’t feel positive emotions, which means she hates me now. Add that to the fact that soulless people don’t feel remorse and can still want a soul, which means that they can steal someone else’s soul with no regard for the consequences._

She laid her face down on the table and abruptly sat back up. Pichu’s eyebrows drew together.

“So she’s been like this for a while, and nobody knows what to do,” Marina continued. “We don’t have any spare souls lying around to just give her. I suppose she saw this opportunity to get herself a soul.”

Star smacked her head repeatedly against the table.

After doing that several times with Pichu and Marina watching awkwardly, she turned back to Marina. “So, how do we stop her?”

“The thing is, we can’t really stop her,” Pichu confessed. “She’s _Kat Terwaul_ , one of the most powerful people in the town. We can’t stop her from doing what she wants to.”

It felt like every brain cell in Star’s mind was screaming at top volume.

“So basically, I’m screwed,” she said matter of factly.

Pichu and Marina nodded.

~~~

Aria stood outside the door to the innermost room in the town hall, in which Kat was rifling through the papers and books from centuries ago.

The woman hadn’t said anything when she’d arrived an hour previously, interrupting the long line of taxpayers who had come to ask Aria for mercy because they couldn’t pay their taxes.

“Let me in to the back rooms of the town hall,” the woman had demanded, and Aria was in no position to refuse her. She was the head of the Terwaul family, after all, and Aria’s employment status depended entirely on if Kat liked her or not.

Not to mention that Kat _was_ currently soulless, and Aria didn’t intend to upset someone without a soul.

She had put Kitsune, one of the four representatives, in charge of the long line of people, ever-increasing in length. Kit was smart and tactical, but very quiet and rarely interacted with the townspeople, so she would have no problem dealing with the taxes.

The key to the rooms at the back was always hanging from Aria’s belt, so she retrieved it. Every door was attached to one key, so if she lost that key, she would be _slightly_ screwed.

With a click, the door creaked open and Kat leaped into the room at once, looking around at all the books and loose paper lying around.

Kat was now throwing leaves of paper across the room in her increasing urgency to find the book that Aria had no doubt she was searching for - the Terwaul family records.

Ever since Kat and that girl Star’s visit to the saloon before the fire, Aria had known that Kat wanted to steal Star’s soul. Although Kat couldn’t feel happiness or satisfaction or any other positive emotion, she could feel anger, sadness and she still had desires.

Kat’s desire, evidently, was to have a soul, no matter what she needed to get it.

“Where is that blasted book?” Kat’s voice shouted furiously.

“Six years ago, your friend - or cousin, I suppose - used this book to steal your soul,” Aria said. “Where would they have put it?”

Kat spun on Aria and the mayor stepped backwards cautiously. “Don’t meddle in business that isn’t yours, _Mayor Cinabun_.”

The woman turned back to searching and Aria rolled her eyes.

At last, the leather-bound book was retrieved from the corner of the room and Kat flipped it open, dusting off the dust that had settled on it.

On the inside cover of the records were the writings that Kat was here to see.

The words were cramped and the pages faded, but the writing was still readable. They were the chants, the poems - call it what you will - the spoken lines that needed to be said for the process of soul theft to be complete.

The two pages were packed top to bottom with small writing in a form of English that died out ages ago because it was hard to understand.

“Do you remember how to steal a soul, Aria?” Kat whispered. She looked up, and her eyes were shining in the dark room. “The seven steps?”

Aria stepped back even further, into the corridor that led back into the main hall, back to safety.

“You were there six years ago,” Kat continued. “You remember how I lost my soul.”

Aria _did_ remember that. She gulped.

“First step,” Kat said. “Find your target. My target has been found. Do you remember the second step, Aria?”

“Ask the oldest person in the family for permission,” Aria breathed.

Kat smiled. “I see, you remember. Step three?”

“Ask someone to be your witness.”

“Good. Step four?”

“Memorize the writings on the inner cover of the Terwaul family records,” Aria answered.

“And then for step five, the soul thief, the witness and their victim go into a darkened room. Step six, chant what was written in the records,” Kat said, a light coming into her eyes.

“And step seven?” Aria asked, but she already knew the answer.

A delighted grin spread across Kat’s face, the most happiness she had shown in a long time, even if it was malicious.

“Obtain their soul.”

~~~

Rocks was having a pleasant day until the children came.

They weren’t children, exactly. The two were definitely adults, but with the amount of screaming that the taller one was doing and the personality that he knew the shorter one to have, it was safe to say that they acted more like children than most actual children.

He pulled the curtains closed and opened the door, right as the shorter one, Kat, was raising her hand to knock. “What is it?”

“Hi, Peter,” said Kat, the shorter one with orange hair and teal eyes that didn’t shine. Behind her, she was dragging along Star, the taller one, with long brown hair and blue eyes. Star was scowling dramatically.

“Is this about the soul stealing thing?” Rocks asked tiredly.

He lived on the very edge of the town. Most people knew him as the strange old man who said nothing but knew everything.

Kat nodded. “How’d you know?”

“I know everything,” he said mysteriously. “Come inside.”

They stepped inside his cottage. It was dark inside, with a few candles lit. He never had his curtains open, and preferred the light of candles to natural lighting.

They sat down at the table and Rocks busied himself with boiling water. “I wasn’t expecting visitors today. Tea?”

“Yes, please,” Kat said.

“No, thanks,” Star said at the same time.

He made a face but said nothing. “Would you like milk?”

Kat shook her head.

She and Star waited in silence as he boiled water. He put leaves in a teapot as he waited for the water to boil and gave Kat a teacup and saucer.

“So,” he said, as he poured the hot water into the teapot and passed it to Kat, who flinched slightly as her fingers brushed the pot. He sat down on the third chair at his table. “Which one of you wants to steal whose soul?”

He already knew the answer, of course, but that wasn’t important.

“Me,” answered Kat, as she poured the tea into the teacup. “Star owes me a lot of money.”

Rocks appeared neutral on the outside, but was secretly screaming in joy on the inside.

 _Finally! Some drama! Life was getting boring inside this lifeless town. And now with a debt and a soul that can be stolen, Star has provided me my entertainment for the week_ . _Oh, this is glorious._

“I _will_ run away,” Star threatened. “I will run away back to the place where I live, where my home is, and where you have no power, and I will make sure you spend the rest of your life in prison.”

“You won’t do that,” Kat said smugly.

“And why is that?”

Kat laughed. “Because if you do, you’ll be regarded as a lunatic who believes that souls can be stolen.”

Star spluttered, apparently at a loss for words. “Well, they’ll see you, and you don’t have a soul, so they’ll believe me.”

“Star, people can act like how I act, except normally, and with a soul. They’re never gonna believe you,” Kat said. She took a superior sip of her tea. “And besides, don’t you remember how the process is carried out?”

“As a matter of fact, I don’t remember how the process is carried out because I have only read of it and I wasn’t even born a Terwaul,” Star snapped. “So enlighten me.”

“Well, once someone has chosen a target to steal a soul from, that target is bound to the person stealing their soul,” Kat explained. “And unless the person stealing the soul dies or is unable to steal it for other reasons, if the target tries to escape, much worse things will happen to them.”

Star sat fuming in silence for a while while Kat smiled smugly and Rocks looked on with interest.

“So, what I assume you’re here for is for me to grant permission for you, Kat, to steal Star’s soul as the oldest person in the family?” Rocks asked. Kat nodded. “I see, I see.”

He thought about it. _On one hand, this is good entertainment. Also, I like Kat better than Star anyway and I want her to go back to the way she was, happy and with a soul. I don’t particularly care about Star, because she left us ten years ago._

 _But then again,_ he reasoned _, on the other hand, is it really fair to steal someone’s soul for selfish reasons? Star owes her a debt, sure, but that doesn’t exactly equate to a soul._

One thing Rocks had learned in his many years of living was that no money could amount to the worth of a friend.

He dismissed that thought. _Eh, it’s not really up to me. She_ is _Kat Terwaul after all._

He nodded. “I approve.”

Star slammed her hand onto the table. “Peter, what the hell? Why would you do this?”

“You betrayed us,” he said simply.

She stood up, making for the front door. As she opened it, she turned back to look at Rocks. “The Peter Rocks I knew ten years ago wouldn’t do this.”

“People change,” he said casually. She threw him another furious glare and stepped outside, slamming the door shut behind her.

Kat went to follow her.

“Kat,” Rocks said, before she could leave. The woman turned around and he was genuinely concerned about her. Her skin was pale and colourless and he hadn’t seen any light in her eyes in six years.

“What is it, Rocks?” she asked.

“Be careful,” he said.

She nodded, and left.

~~~

“The council meeting is open,” Aria announced.

The three usual representatives prepared their papers. Wise followed what they were doing.

She had been asked to fill in for Kat while her sister did something that she didn’t know about. So now, she was representing the Terwaul family, sitting in Kat’s chair, using Kat’s papers.

The room was well lit, with a very tall ceiling, a chandelier and lamps along the walls. This was probably the most well-furnished room in the entire town, with the richly colored wallpaper and the fancy upholstery on the furniture.

Next to Wise sat Kash Baker, who also owned the orphanage. When she wasn’t doing orphanage things, she was in charge of the western parts of Bedlam. Across sat Guppy Fisher and Kitsune Karneval, who were responsible for the town centre and south of the town respectively.

Kat, who Wise was standing in for, was in charge of the north-western parts of the town, including the large lake (the creatively named Bedlam Lake) that dominated the landscape.

She scanned through the papers. It seemed that nothing much had happened in the past month in Kat’s division.

“In the past month, there has been a lot of crime going around our town,” Aria announced. “Guppy, present your report.”

The woman sitting across the room from Wise cleared her throat. Before she could say anything, Wise’s hand shot up.

Aria motioned for Guppy to stay silent. “What is it?”

“Pardon my interruption,” said Wise, searching for the right words to use, “but why exactly is my sister - I mean, Kat Terwaul - unable to attend this council meeting?”

The room was dead silent.

“Kat … didn’t tell you?” Kitsune asked. Wise shook her head. “She’s at the business shed near the lake, stealing Star’s soul.”

Wise blinked. Once. Twice. She was in shock.

“What?”

~~~

Every cell in Star’s body was trembling as Kat spoke to Trash Fisher, the girl who she had picked to be the third party.

There was still a small sense of justice in Kat if she had picked Trash to be the witness, because Trash, although a Terwaul descendant, wasn’t affiliated with any faction in the family.

Still, it didn’t change the fact that Star was going to die, or worse, live without a soul.

They were standing on the sandy northern shore of the Bedlam Lake, a place where Star had spent many hours when she was a child, playing with her friends from the orphanage.

It was a gloomy day. The murky waters of the lake were dark and stormy, and the sky was bleak and grey. It seemed like the colour had been sucked out of the town, just like the colour had been sucked out of Kat.

And today, that was going to change. 

Once Kat had Star’s soul, it would be _her_ soul, and she would be Kat, the way she was six years ago, before she gave her soul willingly to her friend.

They were standing in front of an abandoned shed that was sometimes used to hold markets. It was the place that Star had first talked to Kat since her return to Bedlam Shire.

Kat motioned for Star to follow her into the building, and Trash followed after. It was exactly the same as the day Star had arrived, save for a bit more dust. On that day, the orphanage had been burned down.

How had there been so much disaster in a week? That had been exactly seven days ago. Maybe it was Star’s fault that everything bad had happened. Maybe the town would be better off without her.

She gritted her teeth as the door was closed shut, leaving the three people - well, two people and a dead girl walking - in darkness. She knew how the process went. Kat would say the things she memorized, that were written in the Terwaul family records, and her soul would be transferred.

“Star Baker, because of your actions and your inability to pay a debt, your creditor, Kat Terwaul, has decided to steal your soul. Do you come willingly?” Trash asked.

She wanted to say no, but if she did, bad things would happen. Way worse things than simply losing a soul or having an angry Kat on her tail. No, everything she had ever wanted and worked towards would be gone, and the people she cared about dead. And she would live through all of it.

 _Wow, whoever thought soul-stealing was a good idea wasn’t messing around_ , she thought. _Cursing people who refused to let their soul be stolen? What an annoying thing to do._

Which probably explained it. From what she had read in the records, her Terwaul and Baker descendants were quite annoying.

“Miss Baker, your answer?” Trash said politely.

“Oh, oh yes,” stammered Star, remembering what she was here for. “Yes, I come willingly.”

Even in the darkness of the room, she could see Trash’s head bow. “Then, so be -”

“Not so fast!” shouted a voice, and Star heard the turn of a door handle and the doors to the business shed were flung open. When Star’s eyes adjusted to the light, she saw none other than Wise Terwaul, her mother, standing there in furious glory.

~~~

Wise saw.

She stood, frozen in shock, in the doorway.

Kat was the first to react, spreading her arms wide and giving Wise a smile that she knew was entirely fake. “Wise! My sister! It’s so good to see you.”

She walked up to Wise, who pushed her away and ran up to Star. “Star, are you alright?”

Star didn’t say anything and Wise saw the tears glistening in her eyes. She put her arm around Star’s shoulder and led her outside. “Come. We have a lot to talk about.”

“Mom,” Star whispered, after what seemed like ages. Wise turned to look at her, curious as to what she was about to say. “Mom, Kat wanted to steal my soul.”

Wise shot a glare at Kat as Star looked forlornly at the ground. “I know, Star. She and I are going to have a long talk about this.”

Kat laughed and stepped outside as well. Wise saw Trash remain inside the building, and nodded at the girl, who was probably also traumatized. Kat stepped closer to Wise and Star. “Well, I guess the jig is up. I’m going to steal your precious daughter’s soul whether you like it or not.”

“And why would that be, Kat?”

A sick, twisted smile spread across Kat’s face.

“If she refuses and tries to escape, a curse will fall onto her and destroy everything she’s ever known, including this town and whatever she has accomplished. Including you. Her love for you, and all of the people she knew in the sixteen years she lived here is her weakness,” Kat spat. “So now she has to pay for it, because she didn’t pay me back.”

“Is this all she is to you, Kat?” Wise asked, finding her words at last, and what she wanted to say. “Just a soul you can take to fulfil your own selfish desires? You were friends, once.”

“And we are no longer friends,” Kat said, perfectly calmly. Their eyes met and Wise couldn’t recognize her sister, the only person who had been a constant in her forty-one years of living. Even in the last six years, Kat had still shown her affection.

Now, her teal eyes were cold and lifeless, and every day her health deteriorated.

She looked like a porcelain statue of a woman, her colors faded and her body ready to break at any moment. Unlike the energetic Kat that Wise had once known, so full of life and positivity, this one was as good as dead.

“Then I beg of you, to let me stand in Star’s place. Take my soul instead of hers, so that she may live a better life,” Wise said finally. “It was written in the Terwaul family records that one way someone could be spared of having their soul stolen was to have someone stand in for them. Take my soul, Kat.”

“No, Wise,” Star croaked, standing upright. She cleared her throat. “I will face my fate with dignity and I will not let anyone take my punishment.”

Wise turned to her. “No. I am your mother, and I will not simply _let_ my child have their future snatched away from them. You do not have a say in this matter, Star.”

She turned back to Kat, who shrugged. “Whose soul I steal is of no importance to me. It was simply a debt that I was owed, and this way, Star will feel even worse. I agree to your terms.”

Star shrieked in anguish and grabbed hold of Wise’s arm, but the woman tore it out of her grasp and followed Kat back into the business shed. “Don’t leave me, Wise!”

Wise turned back to her, for maybe the last time, a smile on her face. “Star, I love you. I would do this a thousand times over for you. I will live on, even if only in memory if I end up dying. Tell Kash and everyone else not to lose hope. I love you.”

The doors slammed shut.

~~~

Star banged on the wooden walls furiously. There was no way they couldn’t hear her screaming.

Wise wasn’t meant to go through this. It was Star’s fate, and something she had to face. She had learned after years of living in the city that if you passed on your responsibilities to someone else, it always came back to bite you.

And Wise wasn’t meant to die or live without her soul. Star couldn’t stand the thought of Wise dead, or devoid of positive emotion like Kat was.

She grit her teeth. They weren’t going to let her in to stop it, so she was going to have to take matters into her own hands.

Inside the building, she could hear Kat saying words that she couldn’t understand, changing Wise into a person she wouldn’t recognize. It just wasn’t fair. Why should her word be law in this town? Why weren’t people allowed to do as they pleased, as long as it wasn’t harmful.

Kat’s voice was rising in pitch and volume. Normally, Kat’s voice was rich and musical, or monotone since she had lost her soul, but now she was full-on shrieking.

 _I miss you, Kat_ , Star realized. She missed the Kat she had known.

~~~

_Eighteen years ago_

_Star, eight years of age_

Star was standing outside in the bitter cold. She tugged on the sleeve of one of the adults walking out of the building, but he snatched his arm away.

She walked down the street, the equine traffic and the carts they were driving seeming massive to her. She made it to the next intersection before she couldn’t walk anymore.

Everyone looked at her with pity, but no-one stopped to help her.

At the corner was a tall building, walled and scary-looking. She couldn’t entirely understand what the sign above the door said, but she knew that “Bedlam Shire” was the town she lived in, and that she was now an “orphan”, according to the people who had come to her house after her parents had died, so that may have something to do with the “Orphanage” on the sign.

She had been so, so scared when Mommy wouldn’t respond, and Daddy was nowhere to be seen. And now she was even more scared.

Star awkwardly sat down on the steps outside the building. It was quite a chilly day, even out in the desert. She had been given a coat before they had pushed her out the door.

She buried her face in her hands. She didn’t know what to do. Was she alone?

The door behind her clicked open and she fell off the steps in shock. She turned to see a smiling woman with sparkling teal eyes and orange hair standing in the doorway.

“Oh, what are you doing out here, all by yourself?” she asked, bending down. “Where are your parents?”

“They’re dead.”

The smiling woman flinched. “Oh. Well, why don’t you come inside? This is an orphanage, where we take kids like you whose parents are in a better place, and we look after them.”

She didn’t know why she followed the woman in. Years later, she would smack her palm against her forehead every time she remembered how stupid eight year old Star had been. But she had also been lucky, because she had met Kat.

Kat was the first person to show kindness to her since her parents died.

_Star, eleven years of age_

She had been living in the orphanage for three years, and she was one of the best kids, always eager to please and make the people who worked there happy. Kat had laughed and told her she didn’t need to be so good, and that she was allowed to be a bit bad, but she had firmly shook her head.

There were three women who ran the orphanage - Kat, her sister Wise, and their friend/rival Kash. Wise was more of a mother figure, while Kat was her friend, even if Kat was seventeen years older than her.

She had learned that she was one of the first kids adopted by the orphanage, but she was by far the oldest. Usually kids had relatives who would take care of her, but not Star.

She slid off her bed and walked downstairs. She went out the back door of the building, into the yard, where Kat was doing some gardening. “Kat!”

Kat turned to look at her and smiled. She got up from pulling weeds. “Star! What’s up?”

Star proudly presented her notebook. “I’ve completed the first chapter!”

Kat raised an eyebrow. “Really? That’s great! Care to let me read it?”

Star passed over the notebook and Kat read through it.

“This is a good start,” she said. “Haha, star-t. Anyway, remember that there’s much more to a story than the first chapter. You have to keep at it, and you will definitely have to rewrite stuff because no writer will ever be completely happy with their writing.”

Star rolled her eyes. “Yes, Kat. You’ve told me this a million times.”

Kat laughed. She took off her gardening gloves and ruffled Star’s hair. “Okay, okay. Now, keep on working!”

_Star, sixteen years of age_

She opened the coach door cautiously. She had only ever seen these vehicles of the rich from afar, riding past the town and being in one felt unreal.

Her bags were lying next to her. She was dressed in her best dress. Everything had been paid for by Kat, even the coachman’s services in a one way trip to the city.

She turned to look at Kat, who was standing outside and smiling broadly. “Kat?”

Kat kept on making that infuriating expression. “What?”

She rolled her eyes. “Thank you, was what I was going to say. Thank you for looking after me all these years, and quite literally picking me up off the street.”

Kat laughed. “I have more to thank _you_ for. Thank you for being such a good friend. I could never replace you.”

Star didn’t say it, but she owed Kat much more. All these years, Kat had been there for her constantly. And besides, there was fifty dollars under Star’s name in a bank that existed in the city, as well as all the things that Kat had gifted to her that Star had vowed to pay back one day.

In the bag that she carried with her was the manuscript of the book that she had started five years ago. She could see it being published, and it would be written in one of the first pages:

_Dedicated to Auntie Kat, my friend, for always being there and supporting me no matter how many mistakes I make._

Everyone in the orphanage was lined up on the sidewalk, and everyone cheered as the coachman closed the door. She could see her best friends, Pichu and Marina, smiling at her. She smiled back.

But her widest smile was for Kat.

~~~

As she remembered these memories, she thought.

_Where had it all gone wrong?_

Was it her fault? Was it Kat’s fault that she was so compassionate that she would give someone else her soul to save their life?

The door was flung open. Star didn’t know what she expected, but seeing Kat striding out, healthy and happy-looking, wasn’t one of them.

Her hair was as vibrantly orange as it had been ten years ago, and her eyes finally had the sparkle she had so dearly missed.

But what she _had_ expected was Wise sitting on the floor of the business shed, unmoving. She was still alive, if she was able to sit upright, and she cursed whatever gods that existed for making Wise live instead of dying.

As Trash followed Kat out of the room, Star ran up to Wise. Was it just Star, or was Wise’s brown hair suddenly darker are less rich in colour.

Then Wise looked up at Star and she flinched back in shock. Her adoptive mother’s normally dark blue eyes were cold and lifeless, just like Kat’s had been minutes ago.

“Wise?” she choked out.

Wise blinked up at her. “Who … are you?”

Star let out a strangled laugh. “What are you saying? Don’t joke around like this, Wise. I’m Star.”

There was no recognition in Wise’s eyes. Star clenched her fists and looked at Kat, who was standing outside. “What have you done?”

Kat looked genuinely concerned but shrugged. “You and those blasted kids were her everything, her soul, her mind. So with her soul gone, she’s forgotten about you. Hey, at least the soul reset so I don’t have any of those feelings.”

Star screamed and lunged at her. “How could you say that? How can you say that when your _sister_ is the one sitting on the floor and she doesn’t recognize the people she loved most?”

She swung.

Kat dodged her first punch.

“Wait, guys, don’t-” said Trash, but Star was kicking and screaming at Kat, who seemed unbothered.

Star had been good at fighting, having had to defend herself during some chance encounters during her time in the city, but now, enraged and consumed by her emotions, she was clumsy and slow. Kat scoffed at her.

Then Kat didn’t move quickly enough, and Star threw out a surprise blow and her fist came into contact with Kat’s right cheek.

Kat stepped back, cradling her face and glaring at Star.

“I’m … so …” said Wise, before Kat could do anything.

Both of the women turned to look at Wise, who was making noises.

“What was that?” Star asked gently. “What are you so …”

“Cold,” Kat realized, and Wise nodded. “This happened to me when my soul was first stolen. I was cold, and I didn’t have anything to make myself warm.”

“Well, what can make _her_ warm?” Star snapped. An idea seemed to come to Kat and she walked closer to Wise, who flinched backwards. “Don’t touch her!”

“I’m helping her,” Kat shot back, irritated, as she reached out. The muscles in her body seemed to all tense up, and then relax again as a glowing white … thing … appeared in the palm of her right hand.

It was emanating white light, and it looked like smoke, but somehow also looked solid. It felt … warm, and Star was tempted to reach out and touch it.

“What is that?” Star asked.

“A soul,” Kat replied without turning to look at her. Star moved to another location and saw that Kat’s eyes were closed. After a few moments of silence, Kat let out a scream as the soul split into two, one half floating into Wise’s cupped hands.

“Warm,” Wise whispered. “Warm soul.”

She studied it for a while, touching it and smiling as if she couldn’t believe what she was seeing was real. Star had never seen that expression of sheer desperation on Wise’s face, and she hoped she would never need to see it again. Wise closed her eyes peacefully.

Then the two halves of the same soul floated into Kat and Wise’s hearts, filling them with an aura of light.

There was silence.

Then Wise’s eyes snapped open and she began to scream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... whoops


	4. Chapter 3

It was an ear-piercing shriek. Out of the corner of Kat’s eye, she saw Star cover her ears as Wise screamed, hands reaching up to clutch her head.

The woman was still sitting on the floor, and Kat was standing over her.

“What have you done?” Star roared over the noise. “Why is she screaming like that? Has this ever happened before?”

Kat stood in shock, not moving as the sound beat against her eardrums and tore at her heartstrings. She knelt down, and Wise cowered away from her, the scream dissipating as she looked up at Kat.

“Wise?” Kat whispered. Wise pushed her outstretched arm away.

“I … I forgot who all of you were,” she said hoarsely. “You. Star. Everyone else.”

She buried her face in her hands.

Kat turned to look at Star, who was glaring at her. “What did you do?”

“How was I supposed to know this would happen?” Kat snapped back. “This didn’t happen when I got my soul back!”

Star stomped her foot in frustration. “Well, you’re the only person here who has ever lost their soul, so-”

“Kat,” Wise whispered, interrupting Star. Kat saw a flash of hurt in Star’s eyes as she turned to look at her sister. “Kat. What’s happening? Why do I feel so … empty?”

Kat gritted her teeth. What Wise was feeling wasn’t even a fraction of what she felt when her soul had been ripped out of her body six years ago, and she  _ dared _ to make such a big deal? Wise had always been the weaker, younger sister, the youngest child of five. It was expected that she wasn’t as strong as her older sister.

“It’s something you’ll experience, and get over it,” Kat spat. In a softer tone, she said, “You and I now share a single soul between the two of us, so what we can do is half what normal people with a full soul can do. We can feel emotion to an extent.”

“How do you know all this stuff?” Star demanded, stepping closer. Kat turned to glare at her.

“I read about it, duh,” she replied, then hesitated. “Ages ago, before my soul got taken. I was just reading through the records and learned that people can share souls if they’re closely enough related.”

Wise fell forward, kneeling on the ground, and steadied herself with her arms. Kat quickly lent her an arm and helped her stand up. She was limp.

Being without a soul didn’t affect someone’s health that much at the beginning, and Wise still had half a soul, so she was probably still in shock. Kat hoped there wasn’t anything else wrong with her.

Kat shot Star a smirk as she put Wise’s arm around her shoulder and helped her walk back to the town.

~~~

Star downed the entire glass in one gulp and wiped her mouth with her sleep. She slammed the glass down onto the table, which gave the bartender a fright. “Gimme another.”

Marina gave her a sideways look. “Dude, are you trying to get drunk? Because drinking water isn’t going to help.”

She rolled her eyes as she poured herself another drink. “It’s about the principle, Marina. And … I don’t drink anymore.”

“Well at least you didn’t die,” Pichu piped up. “That’s an upside.”

Star shot her a glare, even though she knew she shouldn’t - Pichu was trying to cheer her up. But she didn’t feel like being cheered up at the moment. “I would rather die than make Wise go through that.”

She gave a long, drawn-out sigh and ran her hands through her hair, hanging loose down to her back. Marina had told her that she’d been under a lot of stress and that she needed to “let her hair down”, and Star had taken that literally.

She banged her fist on the table. “Argh, I’m  _ so _ mad. Why does Wise have to share a soul with  _ Kat _ , of all people? They’re dependent on each other and I just -”

She buried her face in her hands. Pichu patted her back comfortingly.

“Do the family records say anything about what happens when two people share a soul, Marina?” she asked the friend on Star’s other side.

The woman in question had been able to break into the room where the old Terwaul family records were stored, and had scribbled down some notes before she had run away. Marina instantly brightened up.

“Oh, yes, I forgot to say,” she said, fluffing herself up importantly. She pulled out her notebook that was stored in the inside pocket of her coat and flipped it open. She lowered her voice, glancing at the bartender who was cleaning some glasses. “Apparently, if one person in the soul bond dies, then their half of the soul goes back to the person who is still alive, giving them a full soul.”

Star was hit suddenly by an idea, and it seemed that Marina had thought of it already after she realized how obvious it was. “I have to kill her.”

Marina nodded. “It’ll be hard, but both of them will be free from sharing a soul, and I think that with all the things that Kat has done in her soulless form that she -” Here her voice broke a bit. “-deserves to die.”

Star looked away from her friend. What Marina was saying was logical, but it was still Kat, and Star didn’t think she had it in her to end another person’s life.

~~~

_ Ten years ago _

_ Star, sixteen years of age _

As she got off the coach, she looked around. Everything was so  _ tall _ . The buildings were  _ massive _ .

She nodded at the coachman, who tipped his hat and got onto the seat at the front, the horses pulling it away.

Star turned back to the building that she would be spending many years living in, or until she became financially stable. A kind-looking middle-aged woman was standing on the front steps.

“Hello, my name is Majora, and I’m the landlord of 98 East Sheridan Street,” the woman said, inclining her head. “You must be Star Baker.”

“Yes, that is my name,” Star said awkwardly. “Nice to meet you, Majora.”

Majora beckoned for Star to follow her into the building. The tall building was made out of sandstone, a material that Star had seen a lot of in her life, but the inside was well-furnished.

They travelled up two flights of stairs and arrived on the second floor. Almost immediately upon arriving on that floor, they came to a door labelled 2.02 in silver letters and Majora handed her a set of keys.

“This is where you’ll be living, for a while, I hope,” the older woman said. “Your roommate is inside. I believe she is familiar with the person who paid for you to stay here.”

Majora turned to go, and before she went down the stairs again, she added, “It’s good to meet you, Star. I hope you’ll enjoy staying here.”

Star nodded frantically, and in her panic, her words came out wrong. “Uh, I hope you will too.”

Majora disappeared and Star wanted to smack her head on the wall.  _ “I hope you will too”? Star, you’ve outdone yourself this time. _

She turned to face the door and took a deep breath. She needed to make a good first impression with her roommate, so she had to knock. She did so, and held her breath.

Almost immediately, the door swung open, revealing a short woman - well, not exactly short, about Kat’s height - with shoulder-length brown hair and extremely, extremely light blue eyes.

Star did a little bob. “Hi. I’m Star Baker, and I’m your new room-”

“-mate, yes, I know,” the woman said. “Hi, I’m Liz Dayquan, I’m twenty-five years old and I’m an old acquaintance of Kat’s. It’s nice to meet you.”

_ Star, twenty-one years of age _

She had been living with Liz in the apartment for five years now, and the two of them got along perfectly well.

Liz had grown up by the sea and claimed she “had an affinity with water”. She was often loud but really enjoyed drawing, and their apartment was decorated with the things that Liz had drawn.

It had been five years since Star had been back home, and she didn’t feel like returning anytime soon. Her book had been published, and it had been a roaring success, for her  _ first _ book. She had just finished the second part of a series, the first part of which she had published last year.

Star and Liz were currently returning home after a party. It was well after midnight, and neither of them were particularly sober. However, they were still able to walk and talk semi-intelligently, and hear when they were being ambushed.

Liz’s reactions were faster, and she snapped to attention, stretching an arm out in front of Star as people emerged from the shadows.

There were seven people, four men and three women, if their silhouettes said anything about who they were, dressed in dark colours and showing only their eyes.

Star was in panic mode and looked down the alleyway they had been walking through, but no-one was nearby and there was about a hundred yards either way. They weren’t going to make it out unscathed, even alive.

She didn’t know what they were here for, but it was definitely nothing good. Was it murder, or robbery, or …?

She looked down at her attire. She was dressed in a fancy coat on top of a fancy dress, and she wasn’t lacking in the jewelry department either. Her heart sank.

Liz was dressed more modestly, so Star knew that she, not Liz, would be their target.

“Hand over everything,” said one of the men, confirming that they were here to steal Star’s possessions . “All your little trinkets and jewelry and your purse, for good measure.”

Liz stepped in. “And why would we do that?”

Star couldn’t see how they were going to get out of this alive.

“Step aside, we have no use for you,” said another one of the group. “We only want to speak to your master. If you fight back, we will have no choice but to kill you.”

_ Master. So they think Liz is my servant or something. As if she’d ever work as a servant. _

“You’d have to try,” Liz snarled.

Then two of the group split from the rest and jumped at her.

Star was helpless to watch as Liz risked her life for her. She knew her friend was good at fighting, but the dress she was wearing restricted her movement, and she was probably groggy from the alcohol.

Liz leaped over one crouching person to kick his friend in the face, sending her flying into the wall. There was a bone-chilling crunch as the woman’s skull hit the wall. Liz landed back onto the ground gracefully, and then froze.

The first man who had spoken was pointing a gun at her.

Star interrupted. “There’s no need. Seriously. I’ll give you everything I’ve got.”

The man shrugged. “That sounds good, but your guard here killed one of my best people, so she must be punished. Maybe after I’ve dealt with her.”

Liz scoffed. “If she was one of your best people, y’all must suck. Come at me.”

Star resisted the urge to look away. If this was her fate, then she had to face it.

“Fine,” said the man, and he fired the gun three times, into each of Liz’s lower legs and once into her stomach.

Liz let out a howl that chilled Star to the bone. She crumpled to the ground and Star ran up to her, taking a bandage she had in her purse and attempting to stop the blood flowing out of her friend’s legs and abdomen. She had learned basic first aid and she knew that she had to apply pressure, but she knew that it was futile. Liz was going to die, whether it be by bleeding out or someone ending it all for her.

“Now that that’s done, hand over everything,” the man continued, not even bothering to look at Liz, dying on the floor.

Star, who was crouching, glared up at him. She wouldn’t let Liz’s last moments be her handing over the most expensive things she owned. “No.”

“Oh?” said the man. “Very well. You asked for it.”

One of the people by his side took out a small knife, and before Star could register what was happening, the knife flew through the air and buried itself into her left thigh.

She screamed, a sound she dizzily registered as sounding the same as Liz’s howl before she fell backwards.

“Fine,” she spat, as blood coursed out and around her leg. She took off every bit of her jewelry - her earrings, her necklace, even the ring that Liz had given her for five years of friendship, making sure not to show any attitude so she would be safe.

Once she was firmly non-shiny, the group slipped back into the shadows and Star had a feeling that they were going back the way she and Liz had come.

She sank to the floor, trying to stop the blood from flowing out of her leg. It had stained her dress and coat and the scent of death hung in the air. The pain was immense, but it was surely nothing compared to what Liz was feeling.

“Liz,” she whispered. The other woman was leaning against the wall, her legs straight in front of her. “Liz, I’m so sorry.”

Liz chuckled and patted Star’s head. “Don’t worry, Star. It was stupid for me to think I could protect you. But I tried, and that’s what matters.”

With a sinking feeling, Star noticed that blood was leaking from the corners of Liz’s mouth. “No, Liz, stay with me. Come on, don’t leave me. I’ll get you to a hospital and you’ll be back to normal in no time. Come on, Liz.”

A small and sleepy smile took over Liz’s face. “Star, you don’t have to lie. I know I’m going to die. I don’t have much more time. Even if I live, it won’t be worth it. I just want you to end it all. Kill me. I don’t want to bleed out on the floor.”

Star took Liz’s hands in hers. “I’ll find a way,” she promised, as the tears came. She didn’t know how.

From the darkness something was thrown at the ground beside Star. She looked at it, and noticed that it was a handgun. She looked that way, but there was only darkness.

Tied around the grip was a piece of paper, and in the darkness, Star could just barely make out, “I heard your friend needed this. Use it wisely, they don’t know that I’ve done this. From Blue”.

_ Huh. I guess this Blue character was part of that group of people. I guess not all of them are bad. I hope I can see them again and thank them. _

By now Liz’s breathing was shallow and she was almost gasping for air. Ignoring the pain in her leg and the knife still embedded in it. Star turned back to her friend.

“Liz, forgive me,” she said.

“Of course … I will …” Liz said, smiling. “Thank you, Star Baker. And goodbye.”

Star aimed the pistol at the side of her forehead, and fired.

Then before she knew what happened next, she lost consciousness as the pain overtook all her senses and she gave in to blissful silence.

~~~

That day was the worst day of Star’s life, even worse than yesterday, when Wise lost her soul.

From that day onwards, she had sworn that she would face her own fate and wouldn’t let anyone else sacrifice themselves for her. But she had failed her oath, because now Wise had half a soul.

She had been lucky, though - that she hadn’t gotten into too much legal trouble. Liz’s fingerprints hadn’t been on the knife in her leg, so the court had decided that it wasn’t a fight that Star and won and Liz had lost. Plus, there were witnesses at the club that they were at that said that Star had been wearing jewelry and she had been found without it.

Similarly, a gang had been caught and arrested after a bunch of expensive jewelry was found in their possession, and the witnesses said that those were the same as the ones Star was wearing. All of them but one was arrested - Blue Quills, who had written the note attached to the gun that had ended - or saved Liz’s life.

She still needed to thank Blue for that.

Every day after that, she had woken up in a cold sweat after having another nightmare about that night. She had obtained another roommate - a girl called Agent, or Aent as she sometimes went by, and they got along decently well, but she wasn’t Liz.

She had visited the graveyard where Liz was buried every day until she returned to Bedlam Shire.

She had also sworn off alcohol, because if she hadn’t been half-drunk that night, she would have taken another route or been able to save both of their lives.

“Are you okay?” Pichu asked, and Star remembered that she didn’t know what had happened.

“Oh yeah, I am,” she said. “Just thinking about some things.”

“Well, if you ever want to talk about those things, my door is always open,” Pichu said, putting a comforting arm around Star’s shoulder. “Anyway, if you decide to do it, then I’ll support you either way, but I don’t think killing Kat is necessarily the best solution.”

She slid off the bar stool. “I’ll be going, then. See you around!”

~~~

“Kat Terwaul, I challenge you to a duel with guns drawn at high noon on Saturday, to exact revenge for destroying what I hold dear. Should you choose to accept, it will be held at the unofficial dueling grounds in the north-east of Bedlam Shire,” Star said, brandishing her glove at Kat, who was sitting down a few seats at the saloon.

Kat raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

Inside, she was trembling. She had had an inkling that this would happen, and it did.

Of course, duels didn’t always result in a death. But Kat would be damned if she let herself get away with all the crappy things she had done in her lifetime, even before her soul had been stolen.

_ I did so many bad things. I deserve to die. At least now I can die with honor. And even if Star tries to negotiate peace with me, I will make sure that it does not work, somehow _ . She looked at Star’s blue eyes which were welling up with tears. “Very well. I accept.”

“A-are you sure?” Star asked, her voice suddenly losing the bravado it had just seconds ago.

Kat rolled her eyes, pretending like she viewed Star with contempt when she admired her more than anyone else in the world, for her ability to love and her ability to forgive. “Very sure. And why would you challenge me if you were scared I’d accept?”

She smiled cruelly as Star glowered at her.

~~~

Star awoke in a cold sweat five mornings later, her sheets strewn around her as she sat up in her bed.

She pulled open the curtain a little. It was still quite dark.

_ Today I will have to kill Kat, or lose everything.  _ She knew she wasn’t going to be able to go back to sleep, so she got out of bed and prepared for her day.

She knew Kat wasn’t going to let this challenge slide so easily. She knew that Kat would take this opportunity to end the life of someone who had caused her so much trouble, or at least she thought. So she wasn’t worried that she wouldn’t get a chance to shoot Kat.

What she  _ was _ worried about, however, was if Kat would shoot  _ her _ instead. Star had never had particularly good aim. She didn’t know how good Kat was with a dueling pistol.

She wasn’t really shooting  _ Kat _ . Kat would never have done those things. No, she was shooting a mockery of Kat, a monster, one who wanted to destroy everything.

_ Yes it’s hard to accept, but you’re doing this for everyone else’s benefit. The Kat that was your friend would understand. Well, the Kat that was your friend wouldn’t do these things in the first place, but that’s not the important part. _

After she was washed and dressed, she stepped out of her hotel room and came face to face with Cheeze, who was pale and shaking.

“What’s wrong?” Star asked.

“I heard about … you know … the duel,” Cheeze said, the last two words in a quieter voice.

Star raised an eyebrow. “How did you find out?”

“Well, there were a lot of people in the saloon that night, and the news spread.”

Star scowled.

“Uh, k-kinda everyone is talking about it, and what happened with Wise and Kat and their souls,” Cheeze stammered after seeing her expression. “And I don’t want to lose you too, Star, so I got up super early today to make you this painting.”

She held out a piece of paper, on which she had dumped on a lot of paint. It looked  _ somewhat _ like Star, if you squinted, and it had whiskers and cat ears and lots of pink fabric.

Cheeze awkwardly shifted her weight to her other leg as she waited. “Um, do you like it?”

Wordlessly, Star wrapped Cheeze in a hug, so that the younger woman couldn’t see the tears that were threatening to leak out of her eyes. “Yeah, I like it. It’s very … artistic.”

She could imagine the smile that had spread across Cheeze’s face. “Thanks, Star!”

Star subtly wiped her eyes and let go of Cheeze. “I have something to ask of you, Cheeze.”

Cheeze tilted her head to one side curiously. “What would that be?”

She knew it was a lot to ask, especially seeing as though Cheeze had just lost someone dear to her a week ago. But it was less than half a day from the duel and she needed someone to be beside her. She hadn’t mustered up the courage to ask anyone else. “Would you mind being my second?”

“What’s that?”

Star paused and looked around. They were standing in the middle of the hallway, which blocked the path of anyone who wanted to be outside, disturbed the peace of the people who were probably still sleeping, and allowed anyone to hear their conversation. “Why don’t you come inside first?”

She beckoned, and Cheeze followed her into her hotel room. They walked along the short corridor to the main room, where her desk and her bed and the kitchenette were.

Lying on the desk were Star’s papers, the waiver that said that the other duelist wasn’t responsible for her death, and her final letter in case she didn’t make it out alive.

_ But I will. I have to. _

“Tea?” she asked. Cheeze shook her head, and Star motioned for her to sit down at the table next to the kitchenette.

“Cheeze, I know that you’re going through a difficult time. You just lost someone close to you, and I understand if you don’t want to be my second,” she said carefully. “A second is a friend who makes sure the other person doesn’t cheat, and someone who tries to negotiate a peace with the other duelist’s second, so that a fight doesn’t have to occur.”

“Then what’s the point of a duel if no-one’s going to shoot each other?” Cheeze demanded.

“Well, it doesn’t always work, and I’m pretty sure duels are just meant to scare the other person and tell them that you could kill them if you tried, but you aren’t trying,” Star said. Cheeze shrugged.

“Okay, sure,” she said.

Star raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure?”

Cheeze nodded. “I am very extremely sure. I want to see you kill Kat - she hurt Wise.”

_ Okay then. I have a second now, and it’s Cheeze, perhaps the least diplomatic person I’ve ever met. But I hope for her sake that if a duel does have to occur, then I win, or we both miss. _

She considered not aiming for Kat and aiming somewhere else, but dismissed it quickly.  _ If she truly believes that she is right and refuses to reach an agreement, then she’s too dangerous to be left alive. _

Star waved a hand at Cheeze. “Okay, then. Come to the dueling grounds at noon today.”

Cheeze’s face scrunched up. “Where’s that?”

“North-east of the town. You’ll know it when you get there - it’s practically completely empty.”

Cheeze nodded. Star stood up with her and opened the door for her. “See you.”

“See you, Cheeze.”

~~~

“No matter what Star’s second says, do not accept a peace,” Kat said to Wise as the two of them sat in her study. “I do not want that.”

Wise nodded.

Kat had been so relieved when she had found out that she could control Wise to an extent. Mostly so that she could make sure the duel would happen, and that Wise hadn’t found out before her.

_ Am I so paranoid that I would think Wise would go against me? She would do this to me, but I would do this to her. _

She took a sip from her mug of coffee and glanced down at her wristwatch. It was eleven-thirty.

“Alright. Time to go.”

~~~

Star arrived at the dueling grounds at five minutes to noon, Cheeze trailing behind her. Behind Cheeze came the doctor that Star had selected, Dr. Miizyu. She was carrying a set of dueling pistols and was shaking profusely.

It wasn’t a dueling ground, exactly - it was just a large, cleared-out space, where people could host events as they pleased. It was just on the outskirts of the town, near the poorest parts, and the people who lived in those houses lining the road could definitely see what they were doing.

The air was dry and the day was hot, the sun beating down relentlessly from the sky. Star squinted at Kat on the far end of the dueling ground and paused. Kat’s second was none other than Wise.

She stormed towards the two women. “What is the meaning of this?”

Kat smirked, a very smug expression that Star wanted to tear off her face. “I simply picked my second - my sister. Is there anything wrong with that?”

Star couldn’t argue that, no matter how much she wanted to. No commonly observed rules banned blood relatives from being a second. She wanted to scream at Kat, but it wouldn’t do anything. “Very well.”

Kat shoved some papers at Cheeze, who took it. Star didn’t need to see what they said to know it was the same waiver that Star had signed and given to Cheeze earlier. Cheeze, as Star’s second, would be conducting the legal processes.

Star and Kat each retreated to their sides of the dueling grounds while Wise and Cheeze negotiated.

“Well, Star wants Kat to apologize for being … mean, and harming, uh,  _ your _ quality of life,” Cheeze said nervously.

Wise made a face. “Whatever do you mean? I’m perfectly fine. And Kat won’t apologize because she did nothing wrong.”

Something was wrong, terribly wrong. Wise’s words weren’t what she would say. Star darted to Kat’s side. “What did you do to her?”

Kat scoffed. “Do you really think I would do something to Wise? How could I do anything? You’re too imaginative, Star.”

Star scowled. From where Kat was standing, she couldn’t hear what the two seconds were doing, but it seemed like Cheeze was getting angry and Wise was still perfectly calm.

After a few more minutes, Cheeze turned to Wise and shook her head. The two broke off from Wise and Kat.

“She won’t listen,” Cheeze said helplessly. “She keeps on saying the same things over and over.”

Star clenched her teeth. “Fine.”

She turned to Kat and in a louder voice, said, “By the rules of dueling, if the two seconds are unable to reach an agreement, the duelists will have to draw their guns.”

Kat nodded. “That’s how it goes, yes.”

_ Boy, you are acting very smug for someone who’s gonna be dead soon _ , Star thought, fuming. Out loud she said, “Well, there are guns here, and a doctor. I’m afraid that we’ll have to duel.”

She crouched down and picked up the case holding the two dueling pistols she had brought, borrowed from someone in the town. Hands shaking, she opened the case, revealing the two guns and all the bits inside.

Kat leaned down and took one, feeling the weight in her hands. Star did the same.

She loaded the pistol with trembling hands and stepped away.

“Alright,” Cheeze said, saying the things Star had instructed her to. “Uh, because of the grievances caused to Star Baker by Kat Terwaul, Star has challenged Kat to a duel with pistols. Kat accepted. In the case of someone dying, the survivor will not be held accountable for their actions.”

“This has been witnessed by Wise Terwaul, Doctor Pijon Miizyu, and Treas Amphi,” Cheeze said. Wise and Miizyu nodded their agreement.

Star took a deep breath and stood back-to-back with Kat.

_ I can’t believe I’m actually doing this _ , she thought dizzily.

Cheeze, Wise and Miizyu stood carefully away from the two duelists, on the edge of the dueling grounds that only someone with spectacularly bad aim would fire at.

“As you count to ten, you will both walk forward. When ten is reached, you will turn around and choose how to act, whether it be by firing or not,” Cheeze shouted from a safe distance away. “Ready?”

Star nodded. Cheeze gave her a small, sad smile.

“Begin.”

“One.”

Star took one trembling step forward.

“Two.”

Another.

“Three, four, five.”

Three steps this time.

“Six, seven, eight.”

Eight. That was the age she’d become a ward in the orphanage.

“Nine.”

Another, final step. One more and -

“Ten,” she said aloud, her mouth dry.

She turned and her finger hesitated on the trigger. She saw Kat raise her pistol towards the sky, and she tried to stop her finger from pulling the trigger, but it was too late.

She would always be too late.

There was a bang, and her pistol fired, and Star screamed, and so did Kat, too.

_ I hit her. _

Then Kat crumpled down onto the floor, seeming so very small and fragile and breakable.


End file.
